Insidious Delirium
How the hell are you going to make it when the world itself is against you?
Joseph was standing on the corner of Broadway and Forty-Second Street, watching the dazzling bright white lights chasing around the perimeters of billboards from the peep-show theaters, which advertised any and all of the glorious diversity of sexual perversions available to the public.
He was going crazy because his spiritual advisor, a Christian Science practitioner, was telling him one thing while he was doing another. They had been on the phone for the past ten minutes and were getting nowhere. Joseph was always of two minds, but lately, he had convinced himself he could become a whole person. Even so, he wanted sex badly.
“I don’t know if I’ll be successful or not, Barry,” Joseph said from the pay phone. Barry was a spiritualist practicing Christian Science counseling for nearly twenty years. It was 1986, and technology, or modern political correctness, had not yet caught up to the Big Apple. He took a deep breath of exhaust-filled air. “You know — I think I’m gonna make. I have plans on how to deal with my addiction.”
“Joe, it’s just great you can keep such a positive attitude after all you’ve been through. It’s important to keep perspective on where we came from so that we might better see the direction we are heading. Think of King David, and all the trials God put in his path. He sinned, murdered, was adulterous, and jealous. But God had used him for good.”
Feeling more like Job, he had told Barry he was at a restaurant in New Jersey, and he knew he should not be here in the middle of the sex industry’s largest area in NYC just on the perimeter of Times Square. He thought he would just head to the station, grab a subway up to the GWB, and then take a bus from there to home. It did not get past Joseph that families with children of all ages coming from a Broadway theater a block away walked right beneath the lurid, flashing signs advertising porn and nude dancers, without giving it a second thought.
He looked at the sign just above the door to his favorite spot for meeting pretty women — white lights chasing around the depiction of a nearly naked dancer with big American breasts. Below this, the club’s name: Juicy Jerry’s. “God’s been blessing me lately, Barry. Truly, I feel very blessed,” Joseph said.
“Your kids are still playing ball in the little league?” he heard Barry ask through the speaker pressed against his ear.
After a pause wherein he thought about his wife’s constant complaints regarding the boys getting injured, Joseph answered, “Yes. Justin hit a homer during his last game. And Zachary likes his new position at second base. I have to call them as soon as we hang up.”
“From what you’ve told me, they are both great athletes. Maybe I’ll come up and get to one of their games sometime soon.”
Joseph watched a man dressed in drag standing above a subway vent as the exhaust from the vent lifted his dress high up into the air, revealing his feminine undergarments, just as happened with Marilyn Monroe long ago. Beside the transvestite was his female friend dressed in cowboy garments — overalls, boots, and a tall, gallon hat, and she laughed hysterically.
Joseph snapped himself out of his reverie for this occurrence and responded to Barry. “That would be great.” He paused and then said, solemnly, “I’m meeting with my attorney tomorrow. She says there may be a chance I can still get custody, but I think it’s gonna be a longshot.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Barry said, surprised, knowing it must have been something said by the attorney to keep Joseph’s spirits up and without a basis in reality. “Remember, as we say, in God’s view, you already are the perfect father. Right now, you have custody and divorce is not real. Once you married, Joseph, God bonded you for life.”
Joseph was quiet and felt ashamed.
Barry continued. “Anyway, I’ll write you that letter of recommendation letting the court know how much they mean to you.”
“Means a lot to me. Thanks, Barry.”
“By the way, I’m still working with Jeff. I believe you introduced me to him years ago. We’re gonna need a support group for men who are doomed from divorce. Or better yet, one to prevent men who are considering it in the first place! We have to prevent them from going through with divorce. It’s just too devastating.”
“Yes, that might be very constructive,” Joseph answered. “I may have benefited myself from such a group. Probably, we all got married too young, before we ever knew what commitment really meant, or something like that.”
“Just remember, you’re doing well, Joseph … completely and absolutely loved by God.”
Joseph could not help but contradict Barry’s encouraging words within his own thoughts. No, I wasn’t, but I dare not admit that now. For the past two minutes, he had been flirting with one of the Black female dancers who had come out to stand beside the door of the club, beneath the sign, trying to draw customers in while licking her lips at him. He felt his own erection growing uncontrollably.
“Remember, God’s divinity surpasses all things man can do against oneself or one another,” Barry said. “His spirit will sustain and deliver you as He desires you to be delivered. In his view, you are whole and complete just as you are, as a perfect idea of God Himself.” Before saying goodbye, Barry concluded with, “You take care. Call me next week and let’s set up a time for you to come into my office.”
“Will do. And thanks again, Barry.”
Joseph returned the phone to its cradle in the stand-alone phone booth. He was quietly contemplative for a moment, but he knew the tension was going to be too much, despite the decision he had made just to go home while on the phone with Barry. The pressure was too much for him. He would have to complete his original quest and purpose for tonight’s trip into the city.
Looking at Charlotte, the dancer from the club, he whispered out loud to himself for encouragement, “Whether I get the one I want or not, they’re are plenty available at the right price. One of them will come through.”
Joseph put some more quarters into the slot at the top of the payphone and then dialed. He felt better now knowing it would be only a matter of a few more minutes before he would be filled with ecstasy. The number he dialed used to be his own phone number, and each time he pushed the buttons to call it nowadays, he always felt a bit of pain in his heart.
His favorite pastime with his two boys had been taking their small boat out onto the bay and catching fish. He doubted they had been out in that boat in years. His oldest son Justin answered.
“Hi son, it’s your dad.” Joseph said.
Immediately, Justin’s shrill voice cried out in complaint. “Why can’t you take us out to the movies or to the mall anymore? Or anything?”
Joseph tried to calm him. “At least we get to see each other now, and spend some time together. That’s better than nothing.”
“Yeah, at the social service office. You can’t even make it to our games anymore….”
He felt so guilty and dejected … by his ex-wife, by the court system, by society itself. They all knew he had problems, why couldn’t they forgive him and let him move on?
Being in therapy was obviously not enough. He figured his boys would never understand what was happening. Of course, he could not tell them. The only thing he could do is say, “I love the both of you more than anything else in the world. Just keep that in your thoughts for now. It’s gonna get better soon, Justin, you’ll see.”
“Fine!” Justin declared, obviously not feeling so.
“You guys behaving for your mom?”
“Yes.”
“Put Zachary on with you.”
There was a pause and suddenly he heard his youngest son’s loving voice come through. “I love you a whole bunch, daddy!” Zachary said.
“I love you a whole bunch, buddy. I’ll see you both real soon!”
“Okay, daddy … I hope so!”
Joseph pulled up his collar and waltzed towards the dance club. He smiled and winked at Charlotte as he entered through the black-painted, glass doors.
He paid his money, got a scotch and water, and sat at one of the round tables with a pole shooting up through its middle all the way up to the ceiling.
Watching the young performers utilizing every part of their bodies as they danced and made love to the long silver pole was a tonic to his mind, body, and soul that nothing else could come close to producing. He spent his dollars whimsically, and when the dancer at his table had finished her routine, she took him by the hand and led him back to a private room for a “lap dance.”
It wouldn’t be long now to find relief. He felt the heat from her body caressing him softly and generating his own. She was perfect in her grace. As she touched him, and then brought herself into connection with him, killing him right there on the spot, he took off into a world of mediated desire, someplace where normal relations could never accommodate.
He paid her fifty dollars and then left. He’s getting better, he told himself. It had been a few weeks now since he had indulged himself. He had been working hard, paying child support, paying rent, dealing with the loneliness of his newfound isolation.
I am Superman, he thought. I can have my needs taken care of when necessary and then have the power to get through the rest of my mundane life.
He got on the subway, choosing a car with few people aboard, and sat in one of the side seats. As the train moved north, he looked more closely at the car’s only other occupants — a small group of young adults huddling around a pipe. Smoke encompassed them as they indulged, and then Joseph’s eyes locked on a special one: a young woman no more than twenty-two at most. She had a cap on her blond head and oversized jeans hitched up on her waist.
She smiled at him in her daze, and it captivated him. Her energy screamed available and needy, and this enticed him. Watching her grab the pipe from one of her friends, she inhaled the smoke deeply and gleefully. With lust in his heart, he saw her eyes grow even more dreamy. Instantly, Joseph was erect again, imagining the young lady with him in bed.
“Why, God?” He asked himself. He fought to deny his body’s primitive urges, and yet he could not help but to continue looking into her deep blue eyes, his entire soul suddenly drawn to her like air to a vacuum. He quickly snapped his eyes shut, thought of Barry, and prayed, “Dear Lord, deliver me from my lust.”
When he opened his eyes, she was standing right above him, staring him straight into the eyes, swaying back and forth with the rhythm of the moving train. Her blue eyes were misty, sparkling energy and love in some kind of potent mixture. “Mista, you got twenty bucks we can have?” She asked him, smiling and oozing desperation.
Joseph looked over at the other members of the group, who were watching his every move. He tried acting coy, and then asked her, “What do you need it for?”
Her smile unabated, she grabbed hold of the straphanger pole to her left and twirled in a bit of a dance. “You know … some more crack.”
He felt offended that she was so at ease admitting her addiction to him, a mere stranger. “Why you wasting your mind on that stuff? You’re a beautiful woman. You could be doing so much with yourself.”
She looked back at her friends, who were staring at her with grins and nods of encouragement. “It’s fun.” Now leaning into the poll with her groin, she gyrated her hips one time towards Joseph. “You like having fun, too, don’t you?”
Joseph reached into his pocket just as one of the older young men came over to them. “I’m Chino. You give us a C-note and Little Frankie here can come stay with you later on if you give us your address. She gots no home anymore — her old man just threw her out. You know, I’m thinking it could be a good connection, you two! Might last a while….”
“Why can’t she stay with you?” Joseph asked Chino. In his mind, he’s saying, Dear Lord, give me strength!
“My old lady won’t let her.”
Joseph looked at Little Frankie, peering into the sadness which had now infiltrated her formerly sparkling blue eyes. He was thinking: you could come stay with me, Little Frankie, for as long as you’d like, and this thought alternated with these: stay away from me. I’m no good for either of us. God give me strength, oh Lord! I just want to hold her. Love her. Take her away from the streets.
“Yes, or no,” Chino asked, impatiently and fiending his next fix.
When he paused too long in response, he suddenly felt a sharp uppercut hitting his jaw. Then, he was out.
Fifteen minutes later, Joseph awoke just as the subway car engineer was announcing the GW Bridge Station. He picked himself up off of the cold, tiled floor and headed into the station, walking briskly to catch the last bus to New Jersey.
It was late and yet the building was still crowded. He felt for his wallet in his back pocket, but it was not there. There had been over two-hundred dollars in it. He would have gladly given it all, minus his bus fare, to Little Frankie. He told himself: she had wanted to come and live with me in New Jersey. But I had done the right thing and I had let it go.
He told himself that social services would get involved in her life, knowing better what was good for her. He had lied to himself.
Taking solace in that tomorrow, he would be able to see his Justin and his Zachary at the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services, he would visit with them and be able to show them that he loved them, that he was getting better, and that he would not be getting into trouble any longer.
He shook his head, each step feeling like he was that much closer to hell. His heart was breaking for what his life could be now had it not been for his addiction to lust, what could have been had he just said yes to Chino, and what could still yet be … having the power to be Superman in a land full of Kryptonite.
Joseph got on the bus and began to cry.
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